


Never Really Over

by SaltyStarChild (Charonte_Queen)



Series: Never Really Over [1]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, Michael and Maria's talk goes a little bit differently, Not Beta Read, aka what I wanted to hear them talk about, but not to lazy to fix my boys!!, i will die with any mistakes because i'm too lazy to fix it, the Maria/Michael is brief and more of a could-have-been than anything, which is the point of fanfics if ya think about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 10:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20526488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charonte_Queen/pseuds/SaltyStarChild
Summary: “It’s over! It’s been over!”“Does Alex know that?!”or: Maria DeLuca, no matter how much she may want to keep something for herself for once, decides against ignoring the desperate heartbroken look in Guerin’s eyes…so they talk it out instead.





	Never Really Over

“It’s over! It’s _been_ over!”

“Does _Alex_ know that?!”

The shout ricochets off the old wood walls and slams into the both of them as the dust settles. Maria had seen Michael reel from particularly painful punches before; she couldn’t help but notice that it looked a lot like the way he was looking at her right now. His eyes were glassy and heartbroken, emotion pouring off him in violent waves that even her psychic abilities couldn’t quite keep up with.

“Why—how could you _ask_—of _course_ he does!” his voice cracked as he stumbled through his words. “He’s the one who fucking ended—_keeps ending_—things!”

Her heart cracked as her resolve hardened. She knows what she needs to do, even if it wasn’t what she wanted to do. She wanted to believe Guerin—god, did she want to believe him—just so she could keep him to herself. Didn’t she deserve a little good in her life too? With everything that was falling down around her—her mom, her friends being MIA despite both having returned to Roswell, the bar barely staying afloat—didn’t she deserve something _nice_? And Michael Guerin is _good_, is _nice_, is…head over heels in love with one of her best friends and desperately trying to forget it.

“That’s not the impression he gave me last time he sat at my bar,” she whispered, words tight and heavy. They hung between them in the silence that followed, taunting them both.

Yeah, Maria deserves good, deserves nice, but she also deserves someone who wants to be there for her and her alone. She isn’t anyone’s second-goddamn-choice. It hurts her heart a little now to let go of Guerin and their could-have-been romance, but she also knows that, in the end, she’s saving herself from a lot more hurt.

Maria DeLuca is her own savior, every damn time.

So instead of taking what she wants, she stares down Michael Guerin—beautiful, fucked up, surprisingly soft Michael Guerin—and watches a thousand and one emotions clash across his face like he couldn’t believe the words she just said. She grabbed a glass from beneath the counter, opened a bottle of whiskey with a practiced fluidity, and poured.

“Sit down, Guerin,” she sighed. Her order was punctuated by the firm and unarguable sound of the half-filled glass hitting the bar in front of one of the barstools.

His eyes are glassy, his hands tug at his own curls in clear frustration, and he’s started breathing deep and shaky before eventually—finally—giving up the fight. He collapses onto the stool, eyes closing and hands sliding down from his hair to his face. His breathing is still shaky and she’s no longer sure what to do. _This_ isn’t a side of Guerin that she’s experienced with. She’s seen him drunk, angry, violent, and flirty; she’s never once seen him look so sad and broken.

“What do you want from me, Maria? Whatever it is you want me to say, to do, I’ll do it,” he said. He sounded as tired as she felt. “Just, tell me. Tell me what you want.”

She pursed her lips and bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from saying something stupid, something she wouldn’t be able to take back, something as simple as _you_ because she wouldn’t have the strength to stop anything that might come after.

“The truth, ideally,” she told him. Michael opened his eyes then, looking at her with a shattered expression. His hands pulled away from his face and spread out as he shrugged slightly in invitation. “Was it just a high school fling?”

“No,” he answered hoarsely.

Maria watched as the muscles in his face tensed, lips drawn in a tight line and brows furrowed.

“Do you still love him?”

He hesitates.

“Guerin, please just tell me. Do you _love_ him?”

Still, he hesitates. Maria feels her irritation build, the day’s stress acting like gasoline on a campfire to fuel her annoyance.

“Do you _love_ him, _Michael_?!” She demands, voice raised, tight, cracking, and angry.

“Yes! Okay?” his voice raises to match hers, sounding just as angry, voice just as taut and wobbly. “Is that what you want to hear, DeLuca?! That I’ve been gone for Alex Manes since senior-fucking-year? That I’ve stuck to hookups and one-night stands because I couldn’t bring myself to be anyone but Alex Manes’ boyfriend? That he’s the only person who has _ever_ made me feel like it didn’t matter whether I know where I come from or not because I always felt like I belonged so long as I was with him? Is _that_ what you wanna hear?!”

He’s breathing heavy and tears have slipped over cheeks.

Maria sucks in a deep breath as she reels from the explosion of words. She supposes she shouldn’t be surprised by the angry confession after poking the bear, but just a small glance at Guerin is enough for her to feel the overwhelming and all-encompassing love he holds for Alex. It’s a masterpiece of brilliant colors swirled together in such a way that it was reminiscent of Van Goh’s _Starry Night._ But the surface has been tainted. There’s a pulsing dark bitterness and pain—sharp and sour in a way that leaves her mouth itchy and skin dry—that’s crept over the edges to eat away at the light like a parasite.

If she focuses on any one point, she thinks she can see images: flashes of memory. Of flushed cheeks and shy smiles, guitars and the bed Michael’s truck, Alex at different stages of his military career but always coming back to the Airstream and dropping a duffel by the step, and too many tearful goodbyes. A decade’s worth of love and connection assault her senses and suddenly Guerin isn’t the only one crying in the empty bar.

Warm hands hesitantly cup her cheeks, thumbs sweeping away the tears, and she can’t tell whether she wants to lean into the touch or flinch away from it.

Her fingers wrap shakily around his wrists to pull his hands away before she grabs the drink she’d poured for Guerin and downs it in one go. She presses the heels of her palms against her eyes and wipes against the last of her tears.

“Remind me never to give you a psychic reading ever again; you’re completely overwhelming,” she says through a hollow laugh. The crease between his eyebrows deepens as his concern turns to confusion. “If you love Alex even half as much as I just felt off of you, what the hell are you doing here, Guerin?”

It takes him a minute to gather himself from his confusion and the uneasy way Maria is trying to fall back to what it’d been like before Texas had changed things.

“He said he wants to be friends,” he tells her. “But I don’t wanna just be friends.”

Maria raises one eyebrow at him and frowns.

“Who said anything about being _just_ friends? Sounds to me like he was tellin’ you he wants more than just really good sex,” she says plainly, pinning him with a look that tells him it isn’t worth trying to disagree.

“Listen,” she sighs, quiet voice doing nothing to hide just how exhausted she’s feeling. “Alex is one of my best friends, so don’t…don’t go fucking this up, you hear me? You’re going to leave this bar and go find him, and then the two of you are going to sit down and have a _conversation_ where you say exactly what it is that you want, and you’re going to be good to each other. Because I haven’t seen Alex hopeful in a decade, and because I’ve never felt something as strongly as I felt your love for him.”

“And…what about you?” he asks. His face has returned to its usual guarded expression, red-rimmed eyes the only indicator that something was up.

“Me? I’m gonna be just fine. I’ll hurt for a bit, be sad about the whole situation, even sometimes wish it could’ve been anyone other than Alex that you were in love with. But then I’ll start to get over it and I’ll be able to see you and him without feeling a little upset about it. We build a new normal.”

Michael scoffed at the word ‘normal’ but there was a slight uptick at one corner of his lips that had Maria thinking that maybe he wouldn’t mind a little bit of normal. He clears his throat and stands up from the stool.

“I’m—I wish things hadn’t been so—I’m just…I’m real sorry about all,” he waves a hand vaguely through the air, “_this_. And I hope it didn’t screw anything up with you ‘n Alex. I’ll see you around?”

“Give it a couple weeks first, then we’ll see,” she smiles and, even though it’s small and bittersweet, it is, above all, genuine. “Now, scoot before I decide that drink earlier wasn’t on the house after all.”

“I didn’t even—you’re the one who drank it!”

“Lotta talk for someone who’s supposed to be out the door already.”

Michael laughs, short and loud like he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Yeah, alright, I’m going,” he says as he opens the door. He stops and looks over his shoulder at her to give her a smile just as bittersweet and genuine as her own. “And, DeLuca? Thanks. For everything.”

**Author's Note:**

> this was fun! the idea has been bouncing around my head ever since Michael first said "it's been over" because, if I'd been in Maria's position and felt Alex's hope, I'd be pretty damn skeptical about that statement. Anyway, finally got around to actually finishing it. hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it
> 
> find me on tumblr, @salty-star-child, for fics, Malex reblogs, memes, whatever else comes across my dashboard I think is funny, or just to chat


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